[INCUNABLE] A leaf from the Gutenberg Bible

A$200,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Limited edition

[Mainz : Johannes Gutenberg, circa 1454-55]. Single folio leaf, 390 x 286 mm, printed recto and verso, black gothic lettering of forty-two lines in double columns, large two-line initial letter rubricated in red; ox-head watermark clearly visible at the centre of the leaf; light foxing, neat paper reinforcement along margin (probably from when included in the leaf book A Noble Fragment); a fine example housed in a card chemise and protective custom clamshell box, lettered in gilt. A LEAF FROM THE FIRST WESTERN BOOK PRINTED BY MOVABLE TYPE, THE GUTENBERG BIBLE. Leaf 68 of the Gutenberg Bible, with the text of Numbers 7:38 8:12 from the Vulgate Old Testament (the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible and the fourth of the five books of the Torah). The Gutenberg Bible is the Vulgate the Latin version of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament that is largely based on the translations made by Saint Jerome in the late 4th and early 5th century. It is perhaps the most famous and important book in the world, as it was the first complete book printed in Western culture using the radical technology of movable pieces of type. The introduction of this form of printing ushered in an information revolution whose impacts on literacy, education, humanism and, ultimately, democracy, are incalculable. As the first of all first editions the earliest incunable the Gutenberg Bible represents in some sense the holy grail of early printed books. Only forty-eight copies are known to have sur

• Binding: Hardcover

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